1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns content management in broadband printing systems. More particularly, the invention concerns interfacing between a printing service provider application and a content providing application on different hierarchical levels for communication by the printing service application, a multi-service operator, and an end user with the content providing application for managing content information.
2. Description of the Related Art
A broadband printing system (BPS) has been proposed in co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/357,433, filed Jul. 20, 1999 entitled “Internet-Based Push Printing Over Cable Network” in which a third party merchant (e.g. coupon provider) can push-print information across a high speed cable network to a set-top box in a user's home so that the information is printed on a printer connected to the set-top box. In the proposed BPS, the information to be printed on the user's home printer is transmitted via the Internet from the third party merchant to the user via a cable company (commonly referred to as a “cable head end”). The cable head end merely performs rasterization of the information utilizing a print driver corresponding to the type of printer connected to the set-top box in the user's home and then transmits the rasterized information via the cable network to the set-top box for printing on the user's home printer.
In the foregoing BPS system, a user generally enters into a subscription arrangement with the third party merchant to allow the merchant to push-print information onto the user's home printer. The cable head end merely acts as a channel of communication that receives the information from the merchant, processes the information with a print driver to prepare the information for printing on the user's home printer, and then transmits the processed information to the user's home printer via a cable network and a set-top box. Accordingly, management of the content information is provided by the third party merchant directly to the home user and different levels of hierarchy are not used.
While the foregoing system is effective as a broadband printing system, the inventors herein have found a technique for managing the content information in a way that is different from the foregoing approach.
Another system has been described in published PCT International Publication Number WO 00/75798, published on Dec. 14, 2000 (hereinafter referred to as the '798 publication). In the system described in the '798 publication, a document server manages content information for generating and delivering documents, including personalized publications requested by users. Content information is transmitted by content providers to the document server, which categorizes and stores the received content information in a content database. When a user wants to have a personalized publication delivered, the user activates a web page of a printing service provider (e.g. HP Instant Delivery) and completes a questionnaire to provide their name, address, areas of interest and scheduled delivery time. When the user has completed the questionnaire, the user's information is used to form a user profile which is stored in the document server. At the requested delivery time, the document server analyzes the user's profile to determine what content information stored in the content database is likely to be of interest to the user, retrieves the content information from the content database and assembles and delivers a personalized publication.
While the system of the '798 publication purports to provide for delivery of a personalized publication, the extent of the personalization is somewhat limited. In this regard, the foregoing system does not provide for the requesting user to interface with the content provider directly to select content information that he wants to receive. Instead, the user merely fills out a questionnaire that includes areas of interest and the document server selects the content information to be included in the personalized publication. As a result, the user has no way of knowing what content information he/she is going to receive until the personalized publication is delivered. Therefore, the lack of any direct link between the user and the content provider to allow the user to select the content information he wants to receive is one drawback of the '798 publication's system.
Another drawback with the '798 publication relates to multi-service operators, such as cable operators (cable head end). As described in the '798 publication, the delivery of personalized documents or publications is effected by the user requesting delivery of the document directly from the document server (via the Internet) and the document server delivering the document directly to the user (via the Internet). Therefore, the user enters into a subscription with the document server directly and does not subscribe with a multi-service operator. Therefore, there is no way for the multi-service operator to control the type of content information that their users can select for printing in the personalized publication.
As can be seen from the foregoing, the '798 publication lacks the ability for the user to communicate with the content providing application to select the content information they want to receive. In addition, the foregoing system lacks the ability for multi-service operators to control the accessability of the content information by their customers.